


Your Sacred Ground

by Tania_me



Category: Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY
Genre: F/M, Male Masturbation, Sort Of, first person POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 22:18:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tania_me/pseuds/Tania_me
Summary: Inuchiyo is caught entertaining ~thoughts~ about MC.Chapter 2 was inspired by one of his event stories.





	1. Chapter 1

He was late for dinner.

Except he was never late for dinner.

I sat behind my food, nervously pushing it around on my plate as I waited for enough time to pass for me to be able to leave without appearing rude. It felt like forever, though it couldn’t have been longer than half an hour. Finally, Lord Nobunaga set to his dessert which I took as my signal that enough time had passed; bowing, I murmured a polite excuse and left the main castle, trudging down the path towards Inuchiyo’s lodgings. And as I walked, I worried.

The last time Inuchiyo had missed dinner, it was because his fever was so high he couldn’t get out of bed. The time before that, it was because he had been injured and couldn’t get out of bed. Injury and sickness had always been the only things that could keep him from his meals, and that was the reason I was so worried – how sick must he be?

I picked up my pace as I ran through various scenarios in my head, each more fantastical than the last. He was in the throes of a fever, alone and delirious. He had fallen and his leg had shattered and he was lying alone in agony. A group of ninja had broken into his home and he was fighting them off all alone with nothing but a pillow.

The ninja scenario was probably a little farfetched, I would admit.

Regardless of the actual reason, it didn’t take me long to get to Inuchiyo’s lodgings. Reaching his door, I was about to reach out and knock when I thought I heard a soft groan from inside the room, causing me to pause and cock my head towards the door, listening carefully for any other sound and my hand positioned just above the door. This time the groan sounded like my name – he must be sick and feverish and calling out for me, I thought, throwing open the door….

To find Inuchiyo with his kimono around his waist and his hand down his hakama, stretched out on his bedding, his eyes clenched tightly shut and the muscles in his forearm rippling with each movement.

His violet eyes shot wide open and stared straight into mine as I gave a choked gasp. He was in bed, but definitely was not sick.

“You – “ he said, sitting up and spinning around, frantically fixing his clothes. “What are you doing here?”

“You missed dinner! I was worried!” I yelled to hide my burning embarrassment. My face felt as hot as my oven did when baking castella, and no doubt was as red as the coals. “Why weren’t you at dinner!”

“I lost track of the time!” he shouted back at me over his shoulder, now covered by his kimono. “I have my own life, you know!”

“I don’t believe you! You wanted me to walk in on you!” I accused him, stomping my foot. At that, he turned back to me (his clothes now back in place), his face red and his brow furrowed. Even to me, that didn’t make sense, but some part of me wanted to make this his fault for me walking in on him instead of my own.

“What,” he said, his tone implying it was less a question and more an expression of not knowing what else to say.

“You knew I would come looking for you if you missed dinner and you would have known what time it was because everyone else would have finished their training at the same time,” I said, a slightly hysterical edge to my voice because it’s not every day you walk in on your childhood friend doing… THAT, especially not with his muscles exposed and rippling and beads of sweat glinting on his skin and… NO, don’t think about it, stop thinking about it (I won’t be able to stop thinking about it).

“I just… you…” He tried to start a few sentences before he took a deep breath and said, “I was changing.”

“Well, then, next time maybe you should ‘change’ after dinner,” I said, my tone very strongly implying that I wasn’t actually talking about changing.

“It’s none of your business when I ‘change’,” Inuchiyo retorted, his face as red as my own as he drew himself up and frowned in a way that would probably be intimidating to anyone else.

“It becomes my business when I walk in on you ‘changing’!” I griped back, drawing myself up in return in a way that would have been intimidating to no one.

“Then maybe you should learn how to knock,” he said pointedly, looking at the door significantly.

“I… well, I,” I stammered out. Wait, I only threw opened the door because I thought I heard my name. “You said my name!”

His blush, which had started to face, drew back into life as his brows again drew together in a glare. “I did not.”

“You did, too!”

“Did not!”

“DID TOO!”

We both stopped for breath, glaring at each other. After I moment, I started to laugh as I realized how childish we must look.

“Okay,” I said, conceding the point. “I’m sorry for not knocking. But I was worried about you. You never miss dinner.”

At that, he visibly deflated and turned his eyes away from me, as if his annoyance had been the only thing keeping his own embarrassment at bay. “I’m sorry, too,” he muttered, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll try not to worry you again.”

“Good,” I replied. At a loss for anything else to say, we both stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“So… Did you save me dinner?” Inuchiyo asked after a moment, and that snapped the uncomfortable fog of over-self-awareness that had just been hanging over us.

“No, of course I didn’t,” I stated, making a face at him. “I thought you were sick.”

“What am I supposed to do now?” he said, looking forlorn. “I’m hungry.”

“I guess I can cook you something else,” I conceded nicely, turning to head back to the castle and the kitchen. Inuchiyo followed eagerly, keeping pace with me along the way.

But though things felt normal again, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get that image of Inuchiyo – no, at that moment he was Toshiie - out of my head for a while.


	2. Chapter 2

_He said my name._

I would remember the sound of it, the catch in his voice as it segued into a groan, at the most inconvenient times. Standing in front of the stove, checking the doneness of the vegetables – _he said my name._ In the bathhouse, ducking my head under the water – _he said my name_. Serving Lord Nobunaga his dinner – _he said my name_. Inevitably, my face would begin to burn again, as red as the moment I walked in on him, as the image of it flashed through my mind. Broad shoulders pressed against the futon, his back slightly arched, lifting the tightly bunched muscles of his abdomen into the air. The flex of his forearm as he stroked. The glimpse of his teeth biting down on his lower lip.

It was _distracting_.

As far as Inuchiyo himself went, he never mentioned it. Pretended it had never happened, even. Which was fine by me, except that now I found my eyes lingering on the lines of his throat when he threw his head back to laugh or take a drink. Tripping on the slightest uneven floorboard as I watched him training with Hideyoshi, my attention locked on the bunching of the muscles on his shoulders and the tendons on his wrists. But he, curse him, seemed completely unaffected, his usual grumpy and teasing by turns self.

Even though he _said_ my _name_. _He_ said _my_ name.

It wasn’t _fair_.

The more days went by, the more the question churned around in my brain, growing in importance like a fungus on a tree. Was it a one-time thing? Did he have a roster of women in his brain that he cycled through whenever he… did that? Was it just my turn? And the more I wondered, the more jealous I got. Whenever Umeko or Matsuko looked especially nice, a voice in the back of my head would say, “Maybe tonight he’ll be thinking of her.”

It wasn’t _right_.

After weeks of feeling out of sorts, I finally hatched a plan. The plan was to get really, really drunk and then just ask, like I should have done when I first realized it mattered to me instead of spending weeks watching him like the magistrate did me.

I never said it was a good plan.

I showed up at his door in the evening after changing into my nicest, but still regular wear, kimono, a plate of ohagi in one hand and a carafe of sake in the other. I hadn’t bothered tying my hair back, as it usually ended up undone when I drank anyway, and Inuchiyo always seemed to like it down, as much as I could tell he liked anything about me.

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and knocked, balancing the plate on the forearm of the hand holding the sake, mentally giving thanks for my work at our restaurant. I had not thought out the actual logistics prior to making my way here, because up until the incident, I hadn’t ever concerned myself with knocking.

It was _complicated_ now.

The door slid open, revealing Inuchiyo still in his day wear. I held up my offerings, and said, “I brought a snack.”

He stood aside to let me pass, eyeing me suspiciously as I walked past him and settled down, placing the tray in front of me and pouring him a glass of sake. I fluttered my eyelashes innocently at him as I offered the cup, and he took it as he sat in place in front of me.

“What do you want this time?” he asked, sniffing at the sake cup as if testing for poison.

Faking offense, I set a couple of ohagi onto a plate and set those in front of Inuchiyo. “There’s nothing in there except sake, Inuchiyo. I’m just here to spend time with my oldest friend, what’s suspicious about that?”

“Hmm,” was all he said before he took a bite of the ohagi I had placed in front of him.

We sat and chatted for a while, an hour, maybe two, and if Inuchiyo noticed anything out of the ordinary with how much sake I was drinking, he didn’t make any mention of it.

“… And then Hideyoshi managed to convince her to do his laundry,” Inuchiyo said, waving his sake cup and sloshing wine all over his hands.

Feeling the liquid courage coursing through my veins, I leaned forward as he was distracted with dabbing at the wine on his lap, and I said, “Inuchiyo, do you think about me?”

He froze at that, his violet eyes shooting up to meet mine. “D-do I what?” he half-shouted, an uncharacteristic stutter in his voice.

I held eye contact, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks as I repeated my question. “Do you think about me? As… as more than a friend?”

He blinked at me silently, his eyes wide and startled. Deciding that I had already gone this far, I doubled down and said, “When you’re doing that. Do you think of me? And… and of doing other things with me?”

My entire face felt like it was on fire, but I forced myself to not look away. A myriad of expressions crossed his face: confusion, embarrassment, shame, more confusion.

“Why would you ask me that?” he finally replied, his own cheeks turning pink.

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.”

I saw the air whoosh out of him in one breath, followed by a deep inhalation. He was silent again for a few moments, long enough that I finally broke eye contact, casting my gaze to the side and mumbling, “Nevermind, it’s… it’s not a big deal.”

I could feel the tears prickling at the corner of my eyes from embarrassment as I started stacking the dishes back on the tray. So he didn’t feel the same. That’s fine. At least now I knew. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say, and maybe now I could let it go and move on.

I jumped as I felt Inuchiyo’s large, warm hand wrap gently around my wrist, stopping me as I moved to pick up the tray. My eyes flew up to meet his, a single tear falling from the corner at the quick movement.

“I think about you all the time, damnit,” he growled, the tension in his voice a contrast to the gentleness with which he held my wrist. “I watch for you all day, think about you all night, worry about you every time I breathe. Even just touching you like this –“ he paused, his thumb lightly rubbing across the skin of my wrist “- leaves me desperately wanting more.”

Lipping my lips, I leaned forward and whispered, “Then why don’t you take it?”

To my surprise, Inuchiyo let go of my wrist and scrambled backwards across the floor, as if afraid of me. “No, I can’t. I can’t defile your… your sacred ground.”

Now it was my turn to be speechless, staring at the man in front of me who, at least, had the grace to blush.

“Inuchiyo, I’m a cook from Kyoto,” I finally said.

“Yes, but you’re so… so pure, and innocent, and –“ I chopped my hand through the air, interrupting him.

“Inuchiyo… when I was nine, I had a terrible cold and wiped snot and spit all over your kimono. When I was thirteen, I ate some bad fish and threw up all over your lap. When I was fifteen, you listened to me say terrible things about some girl because the boy I liked preferred her over me.”

“Yes, but –“

“I’m not _finished_. I’m not from a samurai family. I’m not refined, I’m not graceful, and I’m not innocent. Inexperienced, yes, but I did not grow up sheltered like the women you grew up with,” I continued, ignoring his attempted interruption. “I’m not sure what sort of revisionist ideal of me you’ve built up in your mind is, but it’s not reality.”

Pushing up off the ground, I reached down and lifted the tray, staring down at Inuchiyo. “I thought you were interested in me as a person, but it looks like you’re interested in some sort of concept of me. So now, I’m going to have to say: If you want to get me naked, you’ll have to convince me it’ll be worth my time. Because right now it looks like you’d be too set on treating me like a porcelain doll.”

And with that, I turned on my heel and marched out of his room, my hands shaking with adrenaline, hoping that my monologuing will help Inuchiyo pull his head out of his ass where he clearly shoved it at some point during his time away from Kyoto.


End file.
